The opening of the second Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad last year marked the first step in establishing a network of schools with an exceptional purpose: an integrated, interconnected network of high-quality residential schools forming a global learning community across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. These will be places where students of merit from all backgrounds, regardless of their family's ability to pay, work and live together enjoying a rigorous academic and leadership experience. To realise this unique vision necessitates a new approach to pedagogy, education and learning, bringing challenges but also a whole new world of opportunity.

Perhaps what matters most in a school is something no architect can design and no teacher can teach, says John Puddefoot, Head of the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad. He speaks passionately about the Academy's perspective on education and the components that go into the making of a great school.

The Aga Khan Curricular Strands are a unique feature of the Aga Khan Academies programme aimed at developing skills and knowledge needed by leaders of the future. The strands were initially developed at the Academy in Mombasa and are now being adapted and localised for the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad.

In advance of its official opening last year, the new Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad hosted 65 students in a summer camp programme designed to try out new teaching and classroom management approaches. Camp participants spent two weeks learning, playing and enjoying the new Academy facilities.

Naini Singh is in the unique position of having been a teacher at both of the current Aga Khan Academies: the Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa and the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad. Her journey has given her a rare insight into the Academies experience.

12 February 2018
| SUCCESS STORY
The Aga Khan SchoolsEducating women, developing society
Over a century ago, Mawlana Sultan Mahomed Shah had an unprecedented vision: to provide exceptional, educational opportunities to students, particularly girls, to help spur development.
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